That's My Boy

Richard Cromwell goes to college to get a lot of knowledge and become a doctor. When it turns out he's a great broken-field runner, football coach Douglass Dumbrille grooms him as next season's secret weapon. When he is unleashed, Cromwell is terrific, and gains national fame. Along the way he falls innocently in love with Dorothy Jordan, is schooled in the economics of college football by Leon Ames, and the unprofitable fleetness of fame by Ward Bond. There's also John Wayne as the entire Harvard football team, stunt casting of the 1931 USC Trojans -- they had won the championship that year -- plus Mae Marsh as Cromwell's mother and and an Robert Warwick as Miss Jordan's father, just to hammer the points home.

The copy of the movie I looked at last night on TCM was not in prime condition. That's a pity for any movie shot by Joseph August. Yet I could still see the appearance of the "Hero Portrait" lighting and shooting angle, not on the football field, but elsewhere, emphasizing the point that hero worship is a pose.

This movie takes a hard and cynical look at the big business of college football, and doesn't pull its punches, even as director Roy William Neill makes sure that all the plot points of juvenile romance, and thrills of college football are covered. In an era when college movies were about fun, games, and sexy co-eds, this dark example stands out from the crowd.